Anonymous
by WithNoFear
Summary: She liked it this way. Nobody knew her, and she knew everyone. Loneliness didn't matter- A story about a team of rejects, the ones that no one would have ever expected, coming together to do good-that is, if they can survive each other and the Justice Brats first. Multiple OCs, slightly AU, rated T for safety.
1. Confusion

**Disclaimer: Obviously, YJ is not the property of WNF. Even if said author is uber-excited about upcoming episode.**

**See you at the bottom!  
**

* * *

Anonymous had never been very fond of staying in one place for too long.

She moved. A lot. Still, there had to be some places that she frequented, and, well, in certain circles, Anonymous was pretty famous. Well, infamous was really a better word, but, hey, what can you do? Anyway, Anonymous was pretty much a loner even if, sure, she saved a few kids' butts every now and then when they stole something they shouldn't have and she was nearby. She considered it beating the system, and Anonymous _hated _the system.

Well, she hated everything, really, but she liked to compartmentalize.

So, anyway, Anonymous, despite her name and… _abilities_, stood out. People could find her, if they really wanted to. That was the point. So when Anonymous arrived in one of her many frequent junk shelters on the outskirts of Gotham, she wasn't entirely surprised that there was a skinny kid waiting for her, obviously one of the street rats.

She threw her coat on the ground, making him turn and jump at the sound.

"What?" she demanded, watching the kid squirm at the sight of her.

"I-I have a note for you," he said, stepping forward and holding the piece of grimy paper out to her, as far from his body as he could get it.

Anonymous almost sighed, barely restraining herself at the last minute. This was a kid, probably nine years old. He wasn't worth sighing over even _if _she could understand why he was so freaked out. Not many people looked like her, after all, and not in a good way. Flicking her white hair out of her ashen face, Anonymous snatched the paper from the kid, tossing a twenty in his direction as she turned toward a gross, dirty cot in the corner and flopped down on her back, opening the paper.

Her eyebrows rose.

"Oh, look," she muttered, tossing the paper to the side. "I've been invited to join a kiddy club. Joy."

* * *

Freaks.

She had snorted the second saw the little 'meeting' which was really more of a therapy session. Definitely a meeting of Freaks Anonymous. She settled in the rafters above them in some old, dusty church building, abandoned years ago, watching the freaky teens slowly settle in. Her sharp eyes caught sight of five of the freaks so far: a weird-looking black girl with white eyes who sat with arms crossed in the corner, the freak-ringmaster who called this stupid meeting, a blonde boy with light green eyes, and last and certainly the most normal, a tall girl with long dark hair.

With a roll of her eyes, she looked heavenward as though there she might find some sense. Her icy eyes flicked down again as she heard the door open with a strangled shriek of rusted metal. She could hardly resist the urge to laugh, doubling over and biting her knuckles to quiet the noise. She decided that _this_ one was definitely the freakiest. Bright red and blue hair, cobalt eyes, freakishly pale skin and, of course, neon colored clothes.

Yeah.

This boy gave even **her** a run for her money. She watched from her hiding spot as the freaks convened at the altar. She snorted at the appropriateness of it.

"Wasn't there supposed to be someone else?" the tall, dark-haired girl asked with a melodic voice.

The blonde guy opened his mouth to answer, stopped by the freaky white-eyed chick raising her hand.

"Oh, she's here," the girl said, voice monotonous and definitely creepy.

Anonymous shifted in the pillars, eyes wide. No way... Shrieking as she felt an invisible force pulling her head over heels from the rafter, she watched in shock as the ground zoomed closer, trying desperately to teleport away. She closed her eyes right before the impact, only to feel herself come to a complete stop, hanging upside down by one ankle. Opening one eye and coming face to face with Freak-in-neon, she glared.

"What are you looking at, bozo?"

Said freak scowled, abnormally dark lips for a boy turning down in an expression that was oddly ill-fitting.

Not that she noticed.

"Wicked, you can set her down," Blondie with a plan said.

She plopped indignantly onto the floor, quickly scrambling up and resisting the urge, barely, to go postal and kill them all.

"Well," Blondie said, clapping his hands together. "Maybe we should get to it."

* * *

"Yeah, um, hi, I'm Exponential," a short, twitchy boy who had appeared from the corners said, standing in front of us. "And I can um, well, just watch."

His body seemed to start growing, sideways, until, abruptly, another head appeared, and arms, and legs and then, an entirely new Exponential.

Anonymous was, grudgingly, impressed.

Next up was the normal-looking girl, the one with dark hair and topaz eyes. "I'm Muse," she said confidently in her melodic voice. "I can control music and, sometimes, people with the sound of my voice."

Anonymous, frankly, thought that was complete BS, but she kept her mouth shut. Not that she had a choice. Wicked, the freaky black girl with white eyes, had already displayed her powers, one of which was, somehow, keeping Anonymous from teleporting by wrapping this dark energy around her. It also, effectively, kept Anonymous' mouth shut, which was slightly annoying.

Blonde Man with a Plan stood up, sending everyone a small, stressed smile. "I'm Psych. I can alter and remove people's memories."

Anonymous snorted. Everyone ignored her.

The neon-colored boy looked around, seeming to realize that Wicked wasn't going to say anything. He scowled and crossed his arms.

"Jester," he said frankly.

That seemed to be enough for Psych, who stood up and started talking about this team he wanted to make.

Lovely.

* * *

She sat, scowling, in a pew, leg stretched out on the torn cushion that had probably once been fancy. So they wanted her to join their team of do-gooders? Fine. Whatever. But if they expected her to be happy about it, they were _so_ off base.

"I think," she said, flicking her white hair out of her face and looking at the group sprawled across the pews, "That we should just get the worst bit of information out."

The dark-haired girl, Muse or Maestro or something stupid, raised one fine eyebrow. "What information?"

She leaned forward, eyes flicking between them in a way that was distinctly predatorial. "Obviously, we all have issues. We should just share them now, and get that bit out of the way."

It was good advice, and she knew it, even if she'd said it just to be malicious and, hopefully, scare them off.

"Okay," said the blonde dude who called himself Psych for whatever reason. "I'll go first." He paused, looking around us all for a few seconds. She made a face. "I'm not a very good fighter."

She snorted, causing everyone to look at her. "I wouldn't have guessed that."

Muse, or whatever, looked irritated. "Who are you, again?"

The girl smiled widely, light grey lips pulling into a predator's smile. "Anonymous."

Maestro rolled her eyes in disgust.

"What? I personally think it's better than _Muse_, or _Psych_, or, what are you-right, _Wicked_, or, hell, Jester? Have you people no imagination?"

"What about me?" a short, thin guy, maybe eighteen, maybe fourteen, asked, sitting up straight, his boy-band brown hair sticking up.

Anonymous shrugged. "Exponential. Creative. I like."

He smirked, leaning back again.

"What's your issue then, Anonymous?" Muse challenged, topaz eyes narrowed.

Anonymous leaned forward, obviously having anticipated this question. "I hate everyone."

"I'm sure," Jester muttered under his breath, glaring at her with those cobalt blue eyes that only babies should have.

She nodded factually. "Yes. I hate everyone. I hate you-" she pointed at Psych, "For bring us together and actually expecting something good to come from it, and you-" Wicked, "for pulling me down, _without warning_ from my perfect hiding spot, and you-" Muse, "For being such a pitch-perfect pretty girl, and you, Expo, for reminding me of Justin Bieber by your mere existence, and I most definitely hate _you_—" She settled her glare on Jester. "For being a neon-clothed, idiotic moron who seems to be under the impression that there actually _is_ hope for psychopaths to be rehabilitated."

Anonymous glared at them all.

"And what about yourself? I'm sure you love yourself," Jester challenged, eyes flashing dangerously as he sat up.

Anonymous smiled grimly. "Oh, that's the kicker. I hate myself too, for being stupid enough to actually come here." She stood, shrugging on her leather jacket. "I'm gone."

"Good riddance," Jester muttered angrily. "I bet she'd get us all killed anyway.

She slowly turned to face him.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, why don't we test this theory?" she demanded. "I win, you live, you win, everyone dies. Happy?"

Jester scowled.

"Go throw yourself into a volcano."

"You first."

"Hey!" Psych interrupted, moving between them and sending them both a surprisingly potent glare. "Settle down. Jester, what's your issue?"

Jester settled his cobalt eyes on Anonymous, scowling. "I'm the Joker's son and when I get too angry or… _excited_, I tend to start laughing insanely and tearing things apart." He leaned forward, still glaring at Anonymous. "_Please_, feel free to make me angry."

Anonymous was about to teleport his skinny little butt into the middle of the Arctic when her sharp ears caught the sound of police horns.

Every teen in the room visibly tensed.

"I vote we recommence tomorrow, same time," Anonymous said, already standing and preparing to teleport, eyes darting across the room.

"Seconded," Exponential said, flicking his hair out of his face and running from the room.

Anonymous teleported to the beams, just to watch them for a bit. The teens in the room scattered, quick enough that no cop would find them even _if_ the cops in this stupid city were competent. Smirking, Anonymous closed her eyes again, releasing herself to the intense pain and relaxation that was teleportation.

The cops wouldn't find her there, either.

**A/N: Hey guys! Ahh, the sweet release of fanfiction. :D Here's a story about my group of OCs, beta'ed by Auri the Awesome, who is, truly, awesome. Excuse Anonymous. She's in the angsty stage of her development. Next chapter should incorporate the YJ team; this was just setting the stage. Review, and I'll give you all superpowers!**

**Yours writerly,  
**

**WNF  
**


	2. Hatred

**Young Justice is not and will likely never be the property of WNF. Unfortunate, really, since WNF would have new episodes daily. Without hiatuses.**

**See you at the bottom!  
**

* * *

She hated Gotham.

Which is _not_ to say that she liked it anywhere else. Anonymous hated everything, generally. Gotham was just particularly worthy of her complete and utter loathing. It was a filthy town, filled with street rats and gang lords and psychopaths and stupid multicolored crime fighters. The one and only reason that Anonymous came back was, unfortunately, a very, very big reason.

It was, honestly, the only thing that she didn't hate.

And that was why Anonymous was sitting, ball cap pulled over her head, hood up, back to a building, in a park, watching a bunch of children playing on the swings. Anonymous scowled.

She _hated_ swings.

The child in the swing, however, was a different story. For once, Anonymous felt her face soften slightly as she watched a little girl, about seven, laughing as she swung back and forth, dark curls flying out behind her head and white teeth flashing from behind tan lips. Her features hardened again as a woman called out from a park bench, obviously barely restraining herself from running over to her youngest daughter.

"Amy! Amy, be careful!" the woman fretted.

Anonymous hated the world, and she definitely hated this woman.

This woman, this normal single mother who wore baggy sweaters over her slight frame and had wrinkles that you wouldn't expect for her age, was number three on the list of people Anonymous hated, mainly because she was Anonymous' mother. The only reason Anonymous didn't teleport to Jaimaca and never come back was because of that little girl, epitome of innocence. Amy was the only person that Anonymous couldn't blame. And, no matter how hard Anonymous tried, she couldn't hate her for that. Not at all. Anonymous felt a well-worn scowl digging into her face as she watched the sun slowly sink down.

She and Amy's mother, the idiot, hadn't realized it.

Anonymous rolled her eyes. Only her mother would choose a playground in a bad neighborhood and then be stupid enough to stay after dark. Standing and watching Amy and that woman walking down the street, Anonymous sighed and started trudging after them. After a few blocks, she allowed herself to fall into the normal pattern of listing off all the things she hated, in order, at the time.

She hated fall. She hated colder weather. She hated leaves on a sidewalk because they made her think someone was following her. She hated the orange sweater her mother was wearing. She hated her mother. She hated her sperm-donor father. She hated alleys. She hated idiots who chose to walk their kid home via alleyways. She hated dirty gangsters with pistols shoved in their waist band, and she hated muggers, and she hated **anyone** who dared to make fear flash in her little sister's eyes.

"Don't touch her," Anonymous growled, teleporting behind a mugger and promptly bashing his head against a wall.

Another one turned as her mother stifled a scream, causing Anonymous to shoot her a look of annoyance. Unfortunately, that resulted in a shot being fired off. Anonymous hissed slightly, doubling over for a split second before rising to glare at the kid, who looked horrified. He was maybe fifteen, old enough to be drafted into any gang, and he should have been used to shooting people by now, but his face was soft, weak. Anonymous glared at him for several seconds before saying three words in a deadly soft voice.

"I _hate_ guns."

The boy let out a short cry of pain as she tugged him forward and broke his wrist with a satisfying _snap_ before dropping him to the ground after very thoroughly knocking him out with a knee to the face, sending a glare at the retreating backs of the other muggers, who cursed and shouted over their shoulders at her. She was debating grabbing a gun and dropping all of them. She was reaching for it, too, when she remembered that she'd been shot, and that she was in front of Amy, and while it wouldn't bother Anonymous to see brains splattered all over the alley, Amy was a kid. And kids didn't deserve to see that.

Anonymous winced slightly as her arm ached and felt basically like she had boiling lava replacing the muscles in her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" her mother asked, starting forward with wide eyes.

Anonymous glared at her from under the brim of her cap. "Screw off and go home."

She shouldn't have been so abrupt. Anonymous saw a hurt and started look flash across the woman's face, and, for whatever stupid reason, it caused some emotion to flare up in her, too. She sighed, rubbing on hand over her face. "Just go home. And try to stay inside after dark next time."

Anonymous managed to stand straight and semi-proud until her mother and sister left. Slouching against the wall, she groaned quietly as she slid off her jacket to look at her wound, the cold wind nipping almost painfully at her bare skin as she survived the bullet hole.

"That was unexpected," a familiar monotone voice said.

Anonymous cursed quietly, looking up at Wicked, the witch-girl she'd met a few nights ago at the freak therapy session. She could barely see the girl, between the growing darkness and her black clothes. As a matter of fact, the only thing Anonymous did see at first were Wicked's white eyes. Which was extremely freaky, even to Anonymous.

"What do you want?" she asked almost tiredly, lacking her usual venom and immediately scowling at the absence.

Wicked shrugged, white eyes somehow boring into Anonymous anyway, making her uncomfortable, which was rather unfortunate since she also had a bullet in her shoulder.

"Psych asked me to find you," Wicked said, almost invisible in her dark clothes.

Anonymous would have made a grand gesture with her arms, but refrained. "Mission accomplished. What, do we have another therapy session?"

The older girl walked through the shadows to Anonymous, stopping when there were only a few feet between them.

Wicked's face remained blank. "What are you afraid of, Anonymous?"

She balked. "Excuse me?"

"Obviously, you're afraid of something," Wicked continued, voice still monotonous and missing any inflections that gave mood. "You claim to hate everything, and yet you take a bullet to your shoulder while protecting your mother, who you hate, and you sister, who you hate."

"I don't hate Amy."

Anonymous could have slapped herself a millisecond after the words slipped out. Idiot, she thought.

Wicked's head tilted ever-so-slightly to the side. "I can heal that for you, if you want."

Anonymous glanced between her bleeding shoulder and Wicked, pain still coursing through her body. "Yeah? So, a good witch?"

"I wouldn't say that," Wicked said, taking a few more steps forward and placing her hand on the bare skin of Anonymous's shoulder.

Wicked's slim fingers were unexpectedly warm, almost hot, to the touch. Anonymous would have guessed they be colder than a normal human's, not warmer. Abruptly, Anonymous gasped as she felt like someone was digging a pair of pliers in to her shoulder and scavenging for a tiny piece of metal. Groaning and barely managing to keep back a scream, Anonymous glared up at Wicked, gasping out a few of her favorite curses. Wicked's face remained blank as, to Anonymous's horror and fascination, the bullet pushed out of her skin and dropped into Wicked's palm. A cool sensation, almost like placing aloe vera on a sunburn, spread over her shoulder, making Anonymous straighten slightly and watch as the wound in her should slowly closed, a few drops of blood leaking from the tiniest incision before even that was gone.

Wicked removed her hand, dark skin tinged red with Anonymous' sticky blood.

"Psych wants to have a meeting tomorrow," Wicked said, still emotionless. "It's at ten-"

"If you say that's in the morning, I'm out," Anonymous immediately interrupted.

"And give the cops a chance to see us in a dilapadated building?" Wicked asked, obviously being sarcastic but, again, still showing no outward signs of it. "I thought you were street smart, Anonymous."

Anonymous glared.

"You'll be there," Wicked said firmly.

Anonymous scowled at the ground. "We'll see."

Wicked stepped out of the alley without another word.

Anonymous remained hunched against the wall, two prone bodies beneath her feet. Scowling, she kicked a rock. She wasn't afraid of anything. She hated everything, and she feared nothing. That was the way it worked.

Kicking one of the goons in the ribs as she passed, Anonymous walked out of the alley, hood covering her white hair and ball cap pulled down to hide her face.

* * *

In the end, Anonymous did go.

But it was **not** because she wanted companionship, or whatever BS they thought. Anonymous knew that she had anger issues, and if kicking butt wasn't a great way to deal with that, she didn't know what was. Besides, it was a slow day. She was bored

End of story.

She teleported so that she was sitting cross-legged on the altar, looking out over the motley congregation sitting on broken and dusty pews while dim light from the streets outside came through mostly-broken stained glass windows. It was disturbingly fitting.

"So," she said, pulling off her cap and looking around at her 'team'. "What now?"

Psych looked around, seeming a little surprised that everyone showed up a second time. "We get to work. First..."

**A/N: Hello everyone! Big thanks to my three reviewers, Auri the Awesome, Stronger123, and GirlAtThePiano. Inspiration ran rampant. I know I promised the YJ team would be in this one, but I needed to develop a few things first. Big note here: Anonymous is still in her 'little character' stage. She's going to face some issues, and she's going to change and grow. This is not how she'll be forever, and you'll find later in the story that she faces consequences for her attitude. :) On that note, love all around, reviews welcome, and see you next time!**

**Yours writerly,  
**

**WNF  
**


	3. Laughter

**Disclaimer: ... If I owned Young Justice, would I seriously be on FF? **

**See you at the bottom!  
**

* * *

You know, she would have been perfectly willing to go the rest of her life without being hit on the head with a crowbar.

Seriously, she could have done it. Just because a girl sneaks into a gang storehouse for drugs and weapons with a team of motley freak-wanna-be-heroes and started attacking the mostly unarmed, halfway drunk gangsters within, did _not_ mean that she wanted to be hit with a crowbar. It's not like it was on Anonymous's bucket list because, to be perfectly honest, she _so_ would have been okay without some _stupid_ gangster freaking screaming like a _little girl_ and throwing his _teeny_ crowbar at her head—

"And that's why you should freaking get a better day job, idiot, because when people throw freaking crow bars at _my_ freaking head, they're going to get their freaking—,"

"Anonymous, he's already unconscious," Psych said from behind her, arms crossed and body language shouting _'unimpressed'_.

She shifted a glare between her now-bloody fists and the thug's now-bloody face. "Huh. Just don't make cronies like they used to, I guess."

Psych sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Anonymous plopped onto the ground, one arm thrown over her eyes as she ignored everyone around her. Her head still hurt, thanks to that stupid idiot moron, and Anonymous was pretty much ready to _press the red button_ because that always meant everyone died, and that was sounding pretty good right now. She was mentally complaining about how uncomfortable the floor underneath her was, sticky and gross though she honestly didn't think it would be any different; come on, these guys were gangsters, they weren't gonna have _hygiene_—

The toes of a pair of boots nudged her ribs.

"Come on, Freakzilla," Jester said, nudging her side again none-too-gently. "Places to go and all that."

She flung her arm dramatically to the side, opening her eyes to glare at him. "Touch me with that disgusting boot again, clown-face."

"What, like this?"

She snarled, grabbing his ankle and tugging him off balance, but Jester twisted out of her grip and aimed a kick at her as he fell backwards. Rolling out of the way, Anonymous was about ready to launch herself at the brightly-clad teen when black magic froze her in place. Shifting her glare to Wicked, Anonymous scowled at the rest of her 'team'. Psych gave her a scolding look, making her bristle indignantly.

"_He_ started it," she said childishly, sticking her nose in the air.

She would have crossed her arms, too, but they were currently frozen at her sides.

"Are you kidding me?" Jester squawked as all eyes turned to him. "She's the psycho here—"

"And _you're_ the meaning of sane—"

"Saner than you are, freak—"

"Not what you're psychiatrist said, I bet—"

"I don't give a—"

"Enough!"

Both of their eyes swiftly went to Psych, who had broken up the verbal fight.

Psych seemed mildly surprised that they were actually listening to him. To be honest, Anonymous was, too. Why should she have to listen to him? It wasn't like he was her boss, or something. Well, he was the leader of this circus, but seeing as he _had_ after all, asked Anonymous to join, she didn't see why he would expect her to take orders from him as well.

He _obviously_ wasn't much of a leader-type.

"Right, well, um," he said, still seeming slightly taken aback, "We should split up for now. It's almost dawn, and since none of us have any desire to be seen during the day…"

He trailed off uncertainly, running a hand through his hair.

"You're right," Exponential quipped, obviously trying to lighten the tension in the trashed warehouse. "If I was seen with you guys, it would totally ruin my street cred."

Anonymous snorted, and Muse started to giggle, stifling it with her hand. Jester's shoulders began to shake with silent laughter, and Psych cracked a smile. It seemed like the moment was going to pass, but then Wicked, who had been silent for the entire mission, let out a choked chuckle, obviously trying to hide the noise from the others.

The teens exchanged looks.

Expo lost it, falling to his hands and knees as he laughed uncontrollably, entire body shaking with the spasms. Maestro slowly slid to the ground, clutching the wall for support as she gasped for breath between helpless giggles, and Jester bent half over, hands on his knees as he laughed, which sounded incredibly natural coming from his mouth. Psych bit his knuckles, trying to avoid laughing, but even he couldn't do it. Wicked, whose dark cheeks had been tainted with the faintest rosy blush, was actually _smiling_. Anonymous clutched her chest as she laughed quietly, trying to contain herself.

Because this was stupid, this laughing. Why was she laughing with people she hated? Why was she laughing at a joke that was half-hearted and not that—_haha —_funny, and totally not worth the breathlessness that actually _laughing_ caused. It was stupid, and Anonymous was trying to stop, but every time she did, she would look up and meet someone's eyes—Muse's, Expo's, even _Jester's_—and the laughs would start all over again.

Eventually, a few of the formerly unconscious thugs started to stir, and their laughter was cut short. Anonymous's face wore a scowl instead of a hopeless grin, and the other's, save Expo, look grim and serious and not at all amused. Exponential kept on looking around, confused, like he was wondering where all the laughter went. As they parted ways in the darkness of Gotham's streets, Anonymous almost told him the answer, just to wipe the pitifully confused look off his face.

Maybe if they were normal people, they could have retained some of the stupid, giddy happiness that came from the stupid, giddy joke, but they weren't normal, they were freaks, and freaks knew exactly what it was like to live in a world where every tomorrow looked worse than the last and everything you did just led to more pain and suffering, and freaks didn't know how to smile like normal people did. They could scowl and snort derisively and even give freaky sarcastic smiles, but they didn't grin, they didn't laugh happily, and they didn't make friends.

At least, not for long.

* * *

**A/N: Hey guys. A little (lot) late, and not much, but I needed to post something, so I wrote this up for you. Lemme know what you think! New chapter up hopefully by Monday. :D**

**Yours writerly,  
**

**WNF  
**


	4. Non-Denial

**Hello, my loves! Hold your rotten fruit until you get to the bottom of this chapter, and then feel free to throw!**

**Disclaimer: As I'm sure is implied with _every single YJ fanfiction_ author, I would never abandon such a perfect series. Never. **

* * *

Anonymous didn't have issues with confronting her problems.

Really, she didn't. She was the kind of person to face anything that dared to come at her head-on with her fists clenched and a scowl on her face, so she was totally entitled to avoid this. Not that she was avoiding anything. Anonymous was just coming to the conclusion that this stupid rodeo was _stupid_ and what the hell did she think she was doing, hanging with a bunch of wanna-be good guys?

Anonymous wasn't delusional. She knew she wasn't a good person.

Good people don't kill other people. At least, that's what she'd heard. Most of the guys she had killed deserved it. The world would totally thank her if she knew what she had casually removed from this planet of greedy, narrow-minded homo sapiens. Well, okay, maybe that wasn't entirely true, but they should. They would if they understood the entire story.

Not that Anonymous was volunteering to tell.

She didn't vent about her problems because she didn't have any problems. She was fine. Nothing could hurt her if she didn't let it, and _nothing_ almost always meant _people_, and while there were six billion nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine other people on this planet, Anonymous was really good at not letting them hurt her. It wasn't avoidance if it kept her alive; it was evolution. And she was never going to be on the bottom of the food chain, not again, and if that meant that she had to remind those stupid teammates of hers that they weren't friends—and they _weren't_—then that was what she would do.

She didn't need them, anyway.

* * *

"I didn't picture you for the avoiding type."

In the time it took her to place the voice, Anonymous had a gun cocked and pointed at the stupid clown's face. She didn't pull the trigger, though, and she wasn't entirely certain why since she _hated_ him—she did, and don't even think any different about it because he's just a stupid clown and she could kill him if she wanted to, she _could_—but she didn't let Jester in on her train of thought, just glared at him. His arms were crossed, and at any other time she would have scoffed at his need to were neon clothing at all times, but she was just wondering how anyone could look so intimidating in such ridiculous pants—she wondered how anyone in striped pants could ever look even remotely serious, but neon pink and orange?—and she realized that she was getting distracted again so she shifted her eyes to match his glare.

He smirked, a biting expression that would have taken her breath away if she didn't hate him so much.

"Do it."

Her trigger finger shook with the urge to take the dare—come on, Anonymous, shoot him—but she just scowled.

"Come on, I thought you were some big-shot, didn't feel anything, couldn't care less about killing someone you _hated_—" Anonymous didn't want to think about how horrible that word sounded, rolling off his lips like that—"Come on, shoot me. I won't move. Come on!"

He was shouting when he finally finished, arms spread out to completely bare his chest and give her a clear shot. "Do me the favor!"

Anonymous wasn't looking for a chance to lower her gun, she really wasn't, but she almost sighed in relief when he gave her the out. Giving him a glare that had made bigger and badder men than him quiver in their boots and a vicious smirk, she clicked on the safety, sticking it in her back pocket. Allowing her eyes a brief second to nonchalantly roam and take in their surroundings—typical alley in Gotham, dark and disgusting and empty when you needed it to be—before she looked at him, Anonymous caught the glint of triumph that appeared in his cobalt blue eyes for the briefest of seconds, and that made her want to pull the gun out and give him five rounds to the chest—_onetwothreefourfive_, just like that—but she refrained.

"I'm not into favors," she said, voice hard as she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket—because who doesn't look like a boss in black leather?—and she flicked her eyes over him, trying to figure out why he was here—not that she cared.

He knew what she was doing, Anonymous could tell from the way his too-red lips betrayed a dark amusement, but Jester didn't call her out on it, which was… weird. In the past two weeks—okay, well maybe it had been a month since she'd met him, but she started ignoring them after two weeks—, both of them had taken every solitary opportunity to make the other squirm or explode or scowl, but here he was letting her off the hook. She crossed her arms. Asshole.

"What do you want?" Anonymous finally demanded, fingers twitching as she imagined teleporting him into the center of the sun. She wondered if normal people could get pissed off just by seeing an amused glint in an asshole's eye, or if she was just special.

He grinned at her, but it wasn't even remotely friendly. "You've been avoiding us. Psych wanted Muse to try and find you, but I convinced him that I was the better bet."

"Lucky me," she spat. "And I haven't been avoiding you."

"Oh," he feigned surprise. "Just haven't been getting the invites?" Jester snapped his fingers, seeming to remember something. "Oh, that's right, you teleport away every time one of us gets within twenty feet of you."

Anonymous was pretty certain that she couldn't be blamed for wanting to rip out his intestines through his nose and slowly strangle him with them. "Go to hell."

"I'd hate to take your reservation," he replied smoothly, not ruffled at all, and dammit, he was really starting to make her angry with this cool and calm act of his.

She couldn't think of a cutting comeback fast enough, so Anonymous settled for finishing this conversation. "And, for the record, I'm not on your little prep squad anymore. Decided the uniform clashed with my hair."

That should wipe the smirk of his stupid—

"I think you have a problem with confronting your problems," he said, looking way too smug as he leaned against the blood- and filth-stained brick beside him.

Oh, she could just _kill_ him.

"I do _not_," Anonymous said waspishly, hands closing into tight fists as she glared at him.

"Yeah," Jester said sardonically, rolling his eyes. "Just like you hate everything."

"I do hate everything!"

Judging by the immediate smirk on his face, he definitely heard the way that her voice got high-pitched—not that it mattered, she wasn't lying, she was just flustered.

Taking a deep breath to calm down, Anonymous glared at him. "I don't have an avoidance issue, and I _do_ hate everything."

"I think I know what your problem is," Jester said suddenly, standing up straight and _woah_, maybe Anonymous should have realized how close they'd gotten while arguing, but it was too late to step back now, so she just glared up at him.

"I don't have a problem, asshole."

He talked over her, not seeming to care that he was just a stupid idiot who had no idea what he was about to dive into. "I think that you think you're some horrible person—"

"I am _not_ a horrible—"

"And that you've basically given up on yourself, which, fine, whatever, feel free—"

"Why the _hell—_"

"But the real problem is that you think that since you've done bad things, you can't do good things." Jester, for once, seemed totally serious, not mocking or idiotic or angry, just solemnly looking at her, and maybe it was supposed to mean something when she couldn't argue with him, but she just ignored the nagging feeling in her chest in favor or listening to his words so that she could think of a good argument. "And I get it, you're a selfish bitch, but to honestly think that you're so important, so damn special that you can't get better—" He was looking at her with a quiet intensity that was almost kind of scary. "—I have to call BS."

And maybe Anonymous's voice shook a little as she said, "You don't know _anything _about me."

And maybe her heart—no, not her literal one, that stupid place in her chest that sometimes hurt when she thought of her mother and loneliness and times like this—shook a little as he laughed breathily, not really amused. "I used to _be_ you."

To anyone else, maybe that wouldn't have made sense, but in her mind it just, she doesn't know, _clicked_, and she got what he meant. He wasn't talking literally—because, wow, could you get any weirder than those implications?—no, he was saying that yeah, he'd killed people, and yeah, maybe some of them deserved, but yeah, he still felt bad about it, and maybe she did too, and maybe he was right, maybe that was why life felt like a constant parade of shit hitting the fan, and maybe she was crying but probably not because she didn't cry.

Coughing awkwardly and turning her face away, Anonymous not-so-subtly scrubbed her tear away while Jester watched, and it might not have surprised anyone else that he didn't mock her for it, but it surprised her. She looked at him warily, swallowing thickly and not missing the oddly sad look on his face.

"If you tell anyone about this—" She was trying to be gruff, but it came out all weak and feathery and—ew.

"What, and risk ruining my rep?" he scoffed, immediately turning back into the Jester she knew without a single hitch. "Whatever. Anyway, next meeting is tonight. You'll be there, yeah?"

She looks at him, really looks.

Maybe she should have realized this sooner, but Jester's life hasn't been a walk in the daisies. His dad is the _Joker_, and judging only by the scars she had seen on his hands and forearms and the few on his face and neck, he made Anonymous's rage issues look like an adjusted housewife. And she'd read in the newspapers, about how the Joker would force a little kid to kill people or torture them or watch, and it never occurred to her that it was the same kid, over and over and over again, or that it was the teen standing in front of her, but that made sense. It was Jester all along, and maybe she should have known that, but she didn't, and maybe she felt her heart soften a little because, yeah, Jester _was_ a lot like her, but she sure as hell wasn't about to let him know she had given up just like that.

A roll of the eyes, scoffing breath. "Whatever."

His lips twitched in something that resembled amusement, and maybe it was progress that she didn't want to kill him.

Maybe.

* * *

**A/N: And maybe it's plausible that I went into a fit of despair when I found out there wouldn't be a season 3, and maybe I refused to write anything YJ-related because it made me depressed. And maybe I got tons of reviews the week of my birthday, and maybe that made me cry and feel guilty and update. So. There. Have an explanation, and let's hope this week's finale isn't a letdown.**

**Okay. Let the rotten fruit fly!**

**(Also, my reviewers:asdfjakenaosdfnalwenraoswfnl asnfwhat? You actually like the way I write? What? Thanks so much for boosting my confidence! I love you all!)**

**Yours writerly,**

**WNF**


	5. Chick Flick

**Disclaimer: Okay, can we all just agree that nobody who likes this show enough to write fanfiction could _possibly_ be okay with cancelling it? Okay? Okay.**

**See you at the bottom!**

* * *

They weren't friends, no matter what that idiot said.

See, Jester was convinced that because Anonymous was sorta-kinda on the team (but _not_ a team player, she'd kill anyone who accused her of that) and that he was the main reason she came back (only in his eyes, though, honestly), that made them like, automatic best friends or some equally emotional chick flick drama. And Anonymous wasn't going to say that there weren't times that he made her laugh (but they were rare), or that she never looked over at him being an idiot and wanted to smile (even if she wanted to, it's not like she actually did, so whatever), or that sometimes when he got that glazed look in his eyes right before running to his room and basically barricaded himself in that she didn't feel something in her gut hurt, almost like getting punched.

(Anonymous never told anyone this, but when she heard the broken, almost _scary _laughter and choked sobs, she wanted to kill the Joker, literally rip him limb from limb and leave his remains in the most desolate places she'd ever seen.)

((There were times when she almost did it, too, before remembering the satisfaction that came when she tore out _her_ abusers' hearts and watched them die, and she knew that she couldn't take that justice away from Jester.))

So yeah, whatever, she didn't try to kill him all the time anymore, but she still hated him. Their screaming matches on a bi-daily basis proved that, even if the fights were slowly becoming farther and farther apart. Besides, you couldn't be friends with someone you hated, and Anonymous hated everyone, no matter what Jester said to the contrary, so she didn't have friends. Period. Right now, she was stretching it by having teammates, and that was weird enough that she was definitely sure she never wanted friends.

Like, they were all working on making the church into something that was remotely livable, right, because Psych thought it would be a good idea for them to have a headquarters/base/whatever, and Expo, being the obnoxiously eager little twerp that he was, jumped on the idea, starting making plans and buying paint and brooms and two-by-fours and all kinds of crap. Well, Anonymous was just going to assume that he was buying it and ignore the fact that dozens of hardware and lumber stores were being rubbed in Gotham recently. She was also going to pretend that she had no idea why things kept appearing randomly in the chapel in the middle of the night, things like furniture and pillows and sheets and stuff. (And if the sheets somehow were everyone's favorite colors, she had no idea why _that_ happened, either.) Anyway, they were all working on their "HQ" more than they were working on patrolling or beating up bad guys, which made Anonymous pretty ticked at first because, honestly, who likes plastering walls over punching out someone's teeth. But when she rolled her eyes and started to walk out the first time Psych ordered her to do something, Jester went and made some challenging comment while he was struggling to put a nail in straight, and she couldn't just walk away after that.

So she was kind of roped into spending a lot of time with the pep squad, and… It wasn't that bad. Like, normally you'd think that six teens with sketchy pasts and freaky powers wouldn't get along under the best of circumstances, let alone basically rebuild a church together, but it was kind of weird how easy it was. There was Wicked, who proved that evidently black magic can be used to renovate a room while sitting in the center of it without moving a muscle (it was super-creepy, watching the hammers and nails and plaster and paint all somehow flying around and looking basically perfect after an hour), and there was Expo, who was basically ten times better at this than the rest of them (not just because he could make ten of himself, too. He was just really eager to please and oddly hardworking and _got shit done_, y'know?), and there was Psych, who despite being the leader was working harder than the rest of them (He didn't remember Muse making him go to sleep every couple days with just the sound of her voice, so the rest of the group didn't inform him, either), and while Muse was pretty much worthless when it came to anything except painting (which she was surprisingly good at), she cooked a lot of good food and ran errands and cleaned up after them when they accidently spilled something and was basically awesome (Anonymous wondered if she was the only one who noticed the older, prettier girl whispering a song as she walked by them and the automatic energy that flooded them after). And then there was Jester, who had pretty much proven himself to be a mixture of smart-ass and actually funny and completely annoying with his blue hair with firetruck red tips and neon clothes, (he was pretty much the only person who could alleviate the tension in a room of overworked teens in a heartbeat, Anonymous thought) and well, there was her, too, but whatever. She was just there for the cake, you know?

And, okay, there were moments when it seemed like they were actually a team and that they worked together to get something done, but most of the time they were still just a bunch of angsty teens with freaky powers, so it wasn't like this was a life changing experience or something.

* * *

It's not like she can help it.

Let's see you basically living with a bunch of screwed up teenagers and not figuring out stuff about them. It's actually kind of painfully obvious after a few days of actually watching them, and Anonymous hates that she feels something in her gut twist every time she learns something new. She doesn't really like to think about it very much because it's hard to hate some people once you get to know them, and she's having trouble finding another reason every time she learns something new. Like, it's hard to think that Muse is pretty much useless anymore because she's seen the scars on her wrists, pink and white marring the 'perfect' skin of the 'perfect' girl who probably got told she was 'useless' enough to believe it. (Anonymous has this urge, sometimes, to tell Muse that she's INSERT SOMETHING FLUFFY AND INSPIRING HERE because the girl may be pretty and smart and a _warrior_ and Anonymous may want to hate that, but she has trouble hating people who already hate themselves, y'know?). And Anonymous followed Psych once after he left abruptly, and found out that maybe the reason he's so keen on being a leader and being strong is because his mom, a sergeant in the army, is in Gotham Cemetery next to his little brother Sean, and they both died in a car crash that only left Psych with a concussion and new powers. Or that maybe Expo is so eager to please and so damn talkative because he can't talk to anyone else (she's seen the way he shrinks back from normal people; he thinks he's a freak just as much as she does, and that makes something in her chest ache a little bit). Wicked was the easiest to be around because if she had any issues, she kept them to herself. And Jester…

Well, there was Jester, and it made Anonymous really angry that she felt so angry and—_Ugh_, what did you call that stupid emotion that hurt her chest sometimes?—when she would look over at him while they were working side by side and she saw him rubbing his shoulder like it was sore or something, but she'd felt aches like that before and she'd seen all his damn scars, especially the one on his shoulder, a horrific reminder of a bullet being shot into the joint there. And, you know, sometimes Jester lost control, and she could see when it was about to happen. Anonymous would look up to make some smart-ass comment about his clothes or something, and—_Shit_, he'd have a look in his eyes, like… like he wasn't there. God, that sounded stupid, but that's the only way she could describe it: It was like _Jester_ turned off and something else turned on, and you could see it just by looking at his eyes. Anonymous never really did anything in those split-seconds before Jester dropped what he was doing and ran from the room, just looked away and grit her teeth because it was taking all of her willpower not to teleport, just clench her gut and feel her fingers tingle and find that damn son-of-a—

She never did, though, and maybe that was supposed to mean something, that she was willing to control her urge for bloody, messy _justice_ for some stupid boy with blue hair.

Whatever.

* * *

She swore to God if he called her 'Non' instead of Anonymous one more fuc—

"Hey, Non," Jester called, tossing an apple in the air and catching it on the tip of one of his knives as he leaned against a wall. "Want an apple? Muse stole 'em for us."

Anonymous growled and started to stand up, but Psych gave her a dangerous look and held up the nearest paintbrush meaningfully. Scowling, she sat back down.

"I didn't steal them," Muse said without missing a beat, long brown braid hanging over her shoulder as she handed out sodas and apples and a dozen other healthy snacks. "It's not my fault the guy wouldn't let me pay."

Her voice was a little too innocent, and Anonymous couldn't help but smirk. "Did baby Muse use her powers against someone?"

Muse gave her a haughty look. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Jester raised his eyebrows at Anonymous as he bit into another apple. "Dunno if I believe her, Non. You?"

She slammed her half-peeled orange onto the ground and stood up. "That's _it_—"

"Sit down, Anonymous, before I make you sit down," Wicked said monotonously as she opened the tab of her soda.

Expo grinned when she did, in fact, sit down, but when Anonymous sent him a dangerous look, the thirteen-year-old turned almost as pale as she was and hid behind Muse. The older girl seemed surprised but oddly pleased, patting the brunette on the head and handing him an Oreo. Feeling eyes on her, Anonymous turned her narrowed eyes to Jester. His cobalt blue brows where pulled down thoughtfully over equally blue eyes as he slowly chewed his apple and stared at her.

"What're you looking at, funnyface?" she demanded, scowling.

"What's up with your—" He gestured vaguely at her with his half-eaten apple. "Uh, everything?"

Psych must have seen her nostrils flare and eyes narrow, or maybe he just objected to the question itself, because he let out a stern, "Jester!"

The blue-haired teen looked at the blonde leader. "What? Come on, it's not like I don't have a screwy appearance too! Here, we can take turns." Clearing his throat, Jester stood up dramatically, straightening his neon green Superman t-shirt in a dignified manner.

Anonymous looked around at the other teens for some clue as to what the idiot was about to do. Wicked had her arms crossed, expression almost as blank as ever, but the was a hint of exasperation on her face, too, so at least Anonymous wasn't alone. Expo's mouth was slightly open, one eyebrow raised in a comical expression of confusion as he looked between Muse and Psych like a five-year-old looking at his parents for direction. Muse just looked at Jester with her eyebrows furrowed and one hand raised slightly in question, and Psych seemed torn between irritation, amusement, and complete confoundment. Expo was the one who took the plunge.

"Uh, Jay, what're you doing?" he asked, scratching his head and looking at the neon-clad teen for an answer.

Jester rolled his eyes, as though the answer was obvious. "C'mon, we've all got scars and—" He gestured at Wicked's eyes, his hair, and Anonymous's entire body— "Oddities. Now, I'm curious, and I know all of you are, so let's just get it all out."

"That's a stupid idea," Anonymous spat, looking around for something to help her avoid this conversation without giving him the satisfaction of teleporting away. "Come on, let's just paint this room and be done. It's the last—"

"Wait," Psych said quietly, brows furrowed ever-so-slightly as he thought. "This… This might be a good idea."

"Easy for you to say," Anonymous snapped. "You're just the normal American heartthrob, aren't you?"

He looked at her, and the sadness and _anger_ in his eyes made her stop reaching for the paint cans. "Maybe not all scars are visible, Anonymous, but I wouldn't be in this damn life if I wasn't as screwed up as the rest of you."

Her breath caught in her throat a little bit, and Anonymous settled back down, looking at the floor between her boots, saying, "Fine."

It came out weaker than she intended.

Jester looked at them all for a few seconds before abruptly pulling off his neon green shirt, much to Muse's discomfort and Expo's confusion. Anonymous got it, though, as soon as she saw skin of his upper arms, formerly covered all the time by a sweatshirt or the long-ish sleeves of his t-shirts, and when their eyes (except Wicked's) travelled from his arms to his chest, Anonymous was the only person who didn't flinch or look away or gasp. Her breath shook a little bit, but she didn't allow any emotion to reach her face because it wasn't as though her skin was any better than his. All the same… It would have made most people sick to her stomach because Jester (who could make her laugh grudgingly at his stupid jokes and somehow knew when she was in a bad mood and sometimes flicked paint at her when they were working side-by-side to make her glare at him and basically was the only person who could be around her all the time without withering from her glares and her ((slowly dissolving))hatred) was covered, literally _covered_ in scars, skin more a quilt of scars held together with tenuous strips of healthy skin than anything else. There were what looked like acid burns and normal burns and bullet holes and knife cuts and cigarette burns and even what looked like the result of a _whip_ on his back, but the scar that really made her eyes start to burn for some inexplicable reason and her hands curl into fists, the scar that was responsible for the poorly-hidden tears on Muse's face and the horror in Expo's and the complete and utter _sadness_ in Psych's and, hell, even Wicked was clenching her forearms so hard that Anonymous could see little crescent-shaped marks from her nails in her dark skin, was a brand, with scar tissue upon scar tissue proving that it had been branded over his heart a dozen times.

_**J**_

It was just that, just a simple 'J', but Anonymous felt her stomach roil a little bit, and it took a lot (all) of her willpower to keep an indifferent look on her face as she met Jester's eyes. He looked a little defiant, a little scared, but mostly just—_hard_. Anonymous wasn't sure how else to describe that emotion, the one she was so familiar with, the one she saw in her own eyes when she looked in the mirror. It was a look that most people wouldn't get, but they did. They were the gutter-children, after all, and being weak, being soft, that was just going to get you killed. You had to make yourself strong, no matter who you left behind in the process.

She and Jester had a lot in common, Anonymous realized, so she decided to throw him a bone right now.

"Why's your hair blue, clownface?"

It got everybody to stop staring at him and remember that Jester wasn't the only person in the world with scars like this, no matter how terrible it seemed right now.

Jester looked at her, and she knew he knew what she was doing, but she wasn't sure whether or not he was angry or grateful or amused.

"Chemicals," he finally said. "The Joker used to inject me with all kinds of awesome cocktails, hoped I'd turn out just like him."

"That why you have your…?" Anonymous made a vague hand gesture, not sure what to call his sanity-lacking moments.

"Yeah," he said, voice a little rawer, eyes a little softer. "Yeah, Non, that's why I'm fucking _insane_."

There was this second, this beat of silence where they all just sat there, and it was poignant and it felt like something in a chick flick, but Anonymous couldn't say _anything_ about how cleche this was because her chest felt constricted and tight. Then, the least expected of everyone, Expo looked up, and his eyes were red and watery and there were tear-tracks on his cheeks as he looked at Jester with really sad eyes that were also incredibly haunted.

"My parents used to lock me in a freezer."

Anonymous closed her eyes briefly because, damn it, her eyes were burning and it wasn't because of teleportation because she hadn't teleported at all in the last ten minutes.

"They did _what_?"

Psych's voice was abnormally rough and dangerous, not at all like the mildly irritated, mostly exasperated one Anonymous was used to hearing. His voice had suddenly turned raw and protective and it sounded like something that would come out of someone like Jester or her's mouth, not a cushy kid with a happy childhood. Expo sorta shrugged, shrinking in on himself and looking way too… too _acceptant_, like it was _his_ fault. Her hands started shaking, like they did when she saw an asshole tying puppies up in a sack and throwing them over a bridge or heard a girl's screams turn to sobs as she was ambushed in an alleyway, and she had to close her eyes tighter because if she looked at Expo again, she wasn't going to be able to stop herself.

His parents would be dead, hearts torn out of their chests and fed to goldfish, and Expo would probably cry because, for some damn reason, he still loved them.

"It wasn't ever actually cold," Expo continued, like that made it better. "They were just scared, y'know? Wouldn't you be if your son didn't need playmates because he played tag with eight different versions of himself?"

"Don't you fucking defend them," Anonymous said, eyes still shut, fists still clenched.

She could hear Jester's breathing, very loud and shaking a little bit, like he was trying to control himself. "Where do they live?"

Anonymous opened her eyes and nearly flinched at the look on Jester's face. She didn't normally associate danger with Jester, but right then, with his eyes narrowed and teeth gritted and fists clenched, he was terrifying.

Expo didn't freak, though, just shook his head. "It doesn't matter anymore. They kicked me out last year."

They were silent again, but this time it wasn't horrified: It was an angry, shaking sort of silence, the kind you hear right before the gunshot.

Muse broke it this time, hugging Expo to her side gently before speaking. "My mom tried to kill me when I was eight. She s-saw what I could do and thought I was a demon, so sh-she reacted the way most people would, slitting my wrists and setting the house on fire. I nearly died, but the firefighters got me out, and I went into foster care." Her voice softened a little bit, as she looked down at her wrists. "I believed her for so long, I just… I just kept up the slicing, y'know? I just believed her even when she was gone: that I was a freak, that I deserved to suffer, that I deserved to _die_." Muse looked up, and her eyes were triumphant now, stronger than before. "Well, um, I stopped a few months ago. It took a long time, but I defeated her."

Anonymous felt like maybe she should talk, but, surprisingly, Wicked took that plunge before her.

"I'm blind because I committed a crime, a few years ago," she said, and there was a little bit of emotion in her voice, a little bit of remorse. "By using a spell deemed immoral on a fellow student at my academy in Europe, I was exiled to America, and my magic was tainted, made darker and harder to use."

There was silence for a second as they all gaped at her.

Finally, Jester took the plunge. "What… exactly did you do?"

Wicked turned her head towards Jester with eerie accuracy. "I tortured her to find out what she did to my familiar. Unfortunately, she had simply locked him away so that I would fail a test, and I lost both my friend and my home."

Anonymous and Jester exchanged wide-eyed looks (Jester mouthing, 'So she tortured someone for a cat?') before Anonymous realized everyone's eyes were on her.

Gritting her teeth, she managed to breathe twice without exploding, so she figured it was about time to inform them just how freaky she really was.

"I was kidnapped when I was eight, okay? Bunch of fucking scientists that thought they were worth more than me because I was Hispanic and they were white. They figured they could do experiments, make superhumans, whatever. There were a lot of us kids at first, and they separated us into dog cages. And, y'know, we all screamed and cried and begged a lot, but they didn't care, and eventually we just stopped fighting, I guess." She struggled to keep her heartbeat in check. "I think I was in there like four years, and they injected me with stuff and had me do tests and all kinds of nice _shit_ like starving me and having us fight to the death and all kinds of _dreams_, and one day they pulled me out and injected me with something and… I just… I felt different, stronger, and I wanted to tear their hearts out, and next thing I know my hand is in one of their chests and it kinda hurts for a second and then I teleport back, and their heart is in my hand and…" She took a shaky breath, closing her eyes. "And that's why I look like this. You know, the grey skin and the white hair and these _**eyes**_**, **but I don't even care anymore, okay? I'm a freak and I _love it_."

Nobody said anything about the way her voice cracked on the last sentence or her breath was heaving in and out.

"You're eyes aren't that freaky," Jester said, looking at her thoughtfully. "Just a really, really, really light shade of grey. Kind of cool, actually."

"And I think it's awesome that you can teleport," Expo said, looking at her with wide brown eyes. "Like, I wish I could."

"No, you don't," Anonymous said, but it lacked her usual venom. "It hurts like hell most of the time, and if you do it too much, you start bleeding from basically everywhere: eyes, nose, fingernails, and, erm,_ everywhere_."

Jester snorted, obviously trying not to laugh, before there was a silence again. They all looked at their leader, who was looking angrier than Anonymous had ever seen him, but he wasn't looking at them, just his own hands.

"I was driving when my mom and little brother were killed in a car crash."

Dead silence.

"I'm sure it wasn't—"

"It _was_ my fault, Muse," Psych said harshly. "And the terrible thing is that they died, and I ended up with a concussion and these stupid powers. Like, what the hell kind of good does it do to alter memories? How the hell does that help the world at all?"

"Neither does controlling people with the sound of your voice," Muse said softly.

"Or making copies of yourself," Expo jumped in.

"Or using black magic," Wicked said, her tone tinged ever-so-slightly with bitterness.

"Or being insane," Jester said, amusement creeping into his voice and eyes.

Anonymous couldn't help the grin on her face. "Or teleportation."

Psych looked at all of them, and they could all see the self-hatred in his eyes slowly turning into determination. "Does this mean we're a team?"

Jester looked at Anonymous, and she looked at Expo, and he looked at Muse, and she touched Wicked's shoulder.

"Yes," Wicked said, quiet triumph in her voice. "This makes us a team."

* * *

**A/N: And we have a team that doesn't completely hate each other. Sorry for the exceptionally long wait. I just... that episode. That finale. I just crawled into a hole and died for a month or so, sorry. I think most of us did. I hope the length (4000+ words?!) makes up for the wait. Love to all my reviewers! So, I have a question for anyone who wants to take the trouble to leave a one or two word answer in the review box. **

**I've got a few pairings in mind for Anonymous, and I'd like to hear your thoughts. The actual YJ team might not make it into the next chapter, but they should soon, so you have all those options, and I've also heard a lot from my friends about Jester and Anonymous, so there's that, too. Let me know!**

**Yours writerly,**

**WNF**


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